About 1/2 hour ago, I went outside to take out the garbage and happened to look to the north- WOW!!! There is a SERIOUSLY bright display of aurora going on right now. It is very rare to see them from where I am (Little Canada, just north of downtown St. Paul) yet they are just beautiful. Lots of sheets of green and blue all over... to the north, east and overhead!

I was down in Belle Plain visiting my brother when we spotted them through the windows with the lights on in the house. Very bright! I was able to snap a few photos which turned out ok. I'll see if I can get them on TV in the morning on channel 4 during weather.

Darn, think I read this too late. I took a peek outside now, very clear skies, but couldn't see any northern lights.

Figures, I try to look for em after every solar flare but always get nothing, the one night I didn't bother looking.. Oh well, I expect my camera wouldn'tve captured em anyways, considering it pretty much hates dark shots.

Darn, think I read this too late. I took a peek outside now, very clear skies, but couldn't see any northern lights.

Figures, I try to look for em after every solar flare but always get nothing, the one night I didn't bother looking.. Oh well, I expect my camera wouldn'tve captured em anyways, considering it pretty much hates dark shots.

Big sunspot 696 unleashed an X-class solar flare on Sunday, Nov. 7th, and
probably hurled another coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth.
Solar wind conditions are favorable for a geomagnetic storm now (late Nov. 7th) and may become even more so when the CME arrives.
Sky watchers: be alert for auroras on Nov. 7th, 8th and 9th. The best time to look is usually around local midnight.

With better cameras, you can often increase the amount of time the CCD is exposed, thus making for better night photography. To do so, you will definitely need that tripod to keep the camera still during the increased exposure time. Also, post upload processing can be used to bring a dark picture out better. Kind of like "burning"._________________I am amazed by how many people harp on the need to speak and write English in this country while exhibiting a fundamental lack of skills in the areas of spelling and sentence composition. Would this be irony, hypocrisy, or both?

why does it seem like as a kid the "lights" where out all the time?? Along the same lines....what ever happened to the "lighting bugs"? I swear you don't see fields of these like I did as a kid.

I never recall seeing the Northern Lights as a kid, at least where I grew up, which is about 6 miles south of where I live now. They are hard to see here with all the light pollution. There was definitely less light pollution around way back in the 70's when I was a little kid, but then again I lived near downtown St. Paul, so dark skies were never a given when I was growing up.

I have not seen such bright Northern Lights in the city as last night, although I do recall seeing almost as nice a display two years ago, from my backyard in Arden Hills (where I was living at the time).

Ah, I love fireflies! I actually wrote a poem about them a few years ago that won a monetary award, believe it or not (I find fireflies very inspiring, creatively speaking). I still see them all the time; seems that I notice them more now than when I was a kid. They are thick in the early summer in rural areas in particular.

Oh, and winter snowfall totals... definitely less now than when I was a kid.

You have a lesser chance of seeing them if you live on the South side of town. From my understanding they were pretty low on the horizon from the North side last night. The glow of the city may prevent them from being seen._________________Airborne All the Way!

I saw them last night while out in the woods (bring in a deer) at around 6pm north of Duluth. It was probably the 2nd most spectacular display I've ever seen. The southern horizon was a very even shade of deep red which is rare in northern lights. The northern horizon was very bright and peak directly above our heads. They were bright enough to be able to see the woods with no flashlight.